Cellular mechanisms of neuronal dysfunction

利用我们之前开发的SERCaMP技术，我们发现自助餐厅的饮食和高脂肪饮食都会导致大鼠肝脏的内质网钙功能障碍。内质网钙调节失调与多种疾病状态有关。我们的发现提供了一种可能的机制，通过这种机制，肝脏功能会因饮食中过多的脂肪而改变。我们的研究结果发表在《肝病杂志》上。 内质网应激与内质网钙调节失调的关系尚不清楚。为了便于我们理解这种关系，我们开发了一种方法，使用两种不同的生物发光蛋白组合来同时监测内质网应激和钙稳态。我们发表在《公共科学图书馆·综合》上的研究使我们能够研究神经退行性变和其他疾病中这些细胞过程如何随着时间的推移而变化。 我们描述了多种转基因工具的特征和发展，这些工具在神经元中表达近红外荧光蛋白(IRFP)作为转基因表达的报告。与其他用于神经科学应用的荧光记者相比，用于可视化的较长波长的光提供了许多优势，这些应用与我们在神经元功能障碍的细胞机制方面的工作有关。这项研究发表在《神经科学方法杂志》上。 在与台湾NHRI王云博士的合作中，我们已经证明9-顺式维甲酸可以促进中风的康复。

Using a the SERCaMP technology that we previously developed, we found that both a cafeteria diet and high fat diet cause ER calcium dysfunction in rat liver. The dysregulation of ER calcium is implicated in wide variety of disease states. Our findings provide a possible mechanism by which liver function is altered in response to excessive fat in the diet. Our findings our published in the Journal of Hepatology. The relationship of ER stress and ER calcium dysregulation in not well understood. To facilitate our understanding of this relationship, we developed a method that uses two different bioluminescent proteins in combination to concurrently monitor endoplasmic reticulum stress and calcium homeostasis. Our study published in PLOS ONE enables us to study how these cellular processes change over time in neurodegeneration and other diseases. We describe the characterization and development of multiple transgenic tools that express a near-infrared fluorescent protein (IRFP) in neurons as a reporter of transgene expression. The longer wavelength of light used for visualization offers many advantages over other fluorescent reporters used for neuroscience applications related to our work on the cellular mechanisms of neuronal dysfunction. This work was published in J Neuroscience Methods. In collaboration with Dr. Yun Wang (NHRI, Taiwan), we have shown that 9-cis retinoic acid can improve recovery from stroke.